Alejandro García del Toro, Deputy Director General in charge of the United States at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, confirmed on Monday that Castro regime officials recently met with U.S. government representatives in Havana.
García del Toro confirmed the U.S.-Cuba talks in Havana speaking to Granma, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, describing the conversations as a “sensitive matter that, as we have said, we handle with discretion.”
“But I can confirm that a meeting between delegations from Cuba and the United States was recently held here in Cuba,” García del Todo told Granma, “The U.S. delegation included deputy secretaries from the State Department, while the Cuban delegation was led by a vice minister of Foreign Affairs.”
“During the meeting, neither side set deadlines or made threatening statements, as has been reported by the U.S. media,” he continued. “The entire exchange took place in a respectful and professional manner.”
García del Toro’s remarks come hours after the newspaper USA Today, citing unnamed sources, reported that a “secret meeting” took place on April 10 in Cuba between U.S. and Cuban representatives. USA Today claimed that, during the meeting, the U.S. representatives gave the Cuban communist regime a two-week deadline to release a number of high-profile political prisoners kept unjustly detained, including Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Osorbo, both leading members of the San Isidro Movement, a pro-democracy artistic collective.
Osorbo is a 42-year-old rapper and two-time Latin Grammy winner, one of the co-authors of “Patria y Vida” (“Homeland and Life”), a song and slogan prominent during the July 2021 anti-communist protests. He and Otero Alcántara are presently serving prison time on a litany of spurious charges including “public disorder,” “contempt,” and “insult to national symbols” for their participation in the July 2021 wave of nationwide anti-communism protests in Cuba.
An U.S. State Department spokesperson reportedly told USA Today that the Trump administration remains committed to the release of all political prisoners, including Alcántara and Osorbo, and pointed to recent remarks issued by President Donald Trump at a rally on April 17.
“As President Trump has stated, a new dawn for Cuba is coming very soon. The Cuban regime should stop playing games as direct talks are occurring. They have a small window to make a deal, “the spokesperson reportedly said. Similar remarks from the State Department were shared with the Miami Herald on Monday.
Fox News later confirmed that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a State Department delegation to negotiate in Havana — noting that it marked the first time since former President Barack Obama’s 2016 “Cuban Thaw” that a U.S. government plane landed in Cuba. A U.S. State Department official told Fox News that President Trump is committed to pursuing a diplomatic solution if possible, “but will not let the island collapse into a major national security threat if Cuba’s leaders are unwilling or unable to act.”
The communist Castro regime, which has plunged Cuba into a state of ruin and misery for 67 uninterrupted years, has found itself in a far more dysfunctional situation since January. That month, the ruling communists lost one of their most crucial benefactors, Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro, who for years helped his Cuban communist mentors sustain their ailing regime with constant supplies of virtually free oil in return for mutual cooperation and numerous forms of assistance that allowed Maduro to cement his repressive rule in Venezuela.
According to Axios, an unnamed senior State Department official said that multiple meetings took place between Cuban and U.S. officials. The official abstained from disclosing the names of the participants except for Raul Guillermo “Raulito” Rodriguez Castro, the grandson of Cuba’s nonagenarian dictator Raúl Castro. While the Cuban regime claims that Miguel Díaz-Canel is the “president” of Cuba, his figurehead position is one of a symbolic nature. Raúl Castro is the actual ruler of the communist regime since succeeding his late brother Fidel. Last week, Raúl Castro’s daughter Mariela Castro confirmed to Agence France-Presse (AFP) that her father is actively involved in Cuba’s “decision-making” process for the ongoing negotiations.
“My father is closely following all the news and contributing to the analysis that informs decision-making,” Mariela Castro told AFP.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.